Category News

Conservation groups sued several Federal agencies today, after the Administration missed deadlines to list the Gulf of Mexico whale, a subspecies of the Bryde’s whale, as an endangered species. The Gulf of Mexico whale is one of the most endangered species on the planet, with fewer than fifty whales left.

“The Trump administration’s policies target the Gulf of Mexico whale for extinction,” said Zak Smith, senior attorney with the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC. “Every day these animals go unprotected from oil and gas development and other threats, we come that much closer to wiping them out. And when we lose them, we lose an important part of the Gulf’s unique natural heritage.”

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), along with Healthy Gulf, formerly Gul...

As the outlook for coral reefs across a warming planet grows grimmer, scientists in Israel have discovered a rare glimmer of hope: The corals of the northern Red Sea may survive, and even thrive, into the next century.

There is broad scientific consensus that the effects of climate change have devastated the world’s reefs, recently ravaging large swaths of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, one of the natural wonders of the world.

The carbon dioxide that humans pump into the atmosphere spikes the temperature and acidity of seawater, which both poisons the marine invertebrates and hampers their growth at alarming rates, according to studies published last year in the journal Science. Experts estimate that half of the corals that existed in the early 20th century have died.

But...

Sharks, turtles, seabirds and fishing firms will be the first in line to benefit as conservation products company Fishtek Marine nears closing a £900,000 crowdfunding round through ethical specialist Triodos Bank.

The investment will speed up product development by the UK designer and manufacturer whose deterrent technology for the global fishing industry tackles the unintended slaughter of the oceans’ wildlife, known as bycatch. This, the accidental death or capture and eventual discard of species by fleets, now involves some 300,000 dolphins, porpoises and whales, 300,000 seabirds and 250,000 turtles every year which become fatally entangled in gear.

“The toll is tragic, but our technology is to be used with equipment and stops damage to it, so it’s in the interests of the ind...

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) may have wiped out the giant megalodon (Otodus megalodon).

Millions of years before human beings emerged, a type of shark that grew up to 60 feet (18 meters) long prowled the oceans. Based on the fossil record, scientists suspect that O. megalodon died off about 2.6 million years ago, around the time a lot of other marine species went extinct.

But scientists may have miscalculated megalodon’s time of death by about 1 million years.

For a paper published today (Feb. 13) in the journal PeerJ, researchers re-examined the fossil record of megalodons in California and Baja California, Mexico, where many examples of the huge fish have been found.

There’s clear evidence that up until about 3...

Life in the sea isn’t easy. Talk to most people about the ocean and they are likely to imagine a tropical scene with a stretch of golden sand and warm, clear water. The reality is often quite different – the marine environment can be a surprisingly cold place.

Water conducts heat far more effectively than air, which means that submerged animals quickly lose their body heat. It’s also harder to warm up again than on dry land, where animals often have the option of basking in the sun or on hot rocks. Finally, many aquatic animals use gills to get oxygen – great for breathing, but essentially another source of heat loss due to all the of water flowing across them and sucking away warmth. 

All this contributes to making it much harder for aquatic animals to regulate their body t...

Some fish may be a little smarter than you think. In a study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Osaka City University, researchers have discovered that fish may, in fact, possess far higher cognitive abilities than previously thought. The fish in the study seemed to demonstrate some form of self-awareness.

The fish the, Labroides dimidiatus, was the star of the experiment. For the uninitiated  Labroides dimidiatus or the Bluestreak cleaner wrasse, is a fish commonly seen in coral reefs from Eastern Africa and the Red Sea to French Polynesia.S

As implied in the name, the Bluestreak cleaner wrasse is known for its cleaning ability. The fish has mutualistic relationships with a lot of the other much larger fish found in corals...

There is nothing quite like jumping into the cool ocean on a hot summer’s day, but this year there is a distinct chill in the water at some New South Wales coastal tourism hotspots. And it is not just swimmers feeling the effects.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the ocean temperature between Port Macquarie and Newcastle is about four degrees cooler than normal.

“The coldest place is between Seal Rocks and Crowdy Head. We’re seeing temperatures there of between 18–19 degrees [Celsius] on average,” ocean analyst Jessica Sweeney said.

“Occasionally we’ve got measurements down to 16 degrees at Crowdy Head — that’s pretty chilly.

“Comparing it to previous years for this time of year, it’s in the lowest 10 per cent of temperatures seen over the years so it’s certainly co...

Rising temperatures will change the colour of the world’s oceans, making them more blue in the coming decades say scientists. They found that increased heat will change the mixture of phytoplankton or tiny marine organisms in the seas, which absorb and reflect light. Scientists say there will be less of them in the waters in the decades to come.

This will drive a colour change in more than 50% of the world’s seas by 2100

Phytoplankton play a hugely important role in the oceans. 

As well as turning sunlight into chemical energy, and consuming carbon dioxide, they are the bottom rung on the marine food chain.

They also play an important role in how we see the oceans with our eyes. 

The more phytoplankton in the water, the less blue the seas will appear, and the more likely t...

A team of researchers from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology and the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum conducted a study of coral resiliency that showed some corals are better able to tolerate heat than similar corals tested in the 1970s. But scientists say it will not be fast enough to fight off rising sea temperatures.

The scientists replicated the identical experimental system, methodology, coral species, collection site, and even brought in one of the original researchers, Steve Coles, adjunct faculty at the UH Mānoa Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB)...

The year 2018 saw the world’s oceans at a crossroads. Some of the world’s most important marine areas came under new and stronger protections. At the same time, the precarious health of the oceans was never clearer, with rapidly rising sea levels, coral bleaching and overfishing.

What does the new year hold for ocean conservation? Human Nature sat down with Aulani Wilhelm, senior vice president of Conservation International’s Center for Oceans, for a look ahead.

Question: What do you see as being the biggest focus in ocean conservation in 2019?

Answer: I think in the next year, the role of oceans and the need to stabilize our oceans in order to cope with climate change is going to become increasingly inescapable...